Buzzcocks: Another Music in a Different Kitchen 12" (Black Friday 2015)

Our take: The Buzzcocks' fabulous debut full-length gets a reissue for Black Friday, and seeing as this era of the band produced some of my favorite music of all time I made sure to grab enough copies to keep them on the shelves for a little while. Another Music represents a unique point in the band's discography; while the lineup is the classic one that recorded Singles Going Steady and all of their pre-breakup material, much of the material comes from Howard Devoto's tenure in the band, when they had much more of a basic, less pop-infused punk sound. Songs like "No Reply" and "Love Battery" sound more natural in their Devoto-led versions, but that's not to say that these Shelley-sung versions are anything less than stellar. In addition to those tracks, this album also includes a couple of pop bangers that would have made great singles ("Fast Cars" and "Get On Our Own") as well as a few tracks that show off the band's more experimental, Can-influenced side ("Moving Away from the Pulsebeat"), an aspect of the Buzzcocks' sound that is rarely even remarked upon, much less properly rated. While the LP taken as a whole might feel slightly fractured, it also might be the best Buzzcocks full-length, since Love Bites is plagued by the quality gap between the single and album tracks and A Different Kind of Tension lacks more than one or two out-and-out classic tracks. Basically, what I'm getting at is that this is a seminal document in the history of punk. Get Singles Going Steady first, but make sure to get this second.